


It Was The Right Leg

by Novanii



Series: Runner [4]
Category: All Elite Wrestling
Genre: Add a kiss go ahead, Drabble, M/M, Self-Reflection, Tumblr Prompt, mostly stream of consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:02:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28058880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Novanii/pseuds/Novanii
Summary: The night after Full Gear, Adam Page reflects on his mistakes.
Relationships: Kenny Omega/Adam Page
Series: Runner [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055381
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	It Was The Right Leg

**Author's Note:**

> Copied from an answered prompt, sent by my partner.

**Prompt:** His chest aches, his cheekbone throbs with the imminent development of a bruise. (how? he doesn't remember, as faint as he is. Adam had fought, and he fought hard.) but Kenny is the one victorious. victorious, but all he's able to do is kneel, half-collapsed, his hands against the canvas for support. He doesn't know why. He doesn't know why, but he kisses him, lips to the forehead of the man he—. he kisses him. He walks away. He touches the bruise on his cheekbone, and he smiles. it still hurts.

**A.**

He didn’t hook the leg. 

Adam rolled through the snapdragon and countered with a firm elbow to Kenny’s jaw. He put Kenny on his feet and then lifted the other man by the thighs, over his shoulders. Deadeye, right to the back of the head, a knock-out for a lesser man. Except Kenny Omega was Kenny  _ Fucking _ Omega, and he kicked-out. The match rolled on, Adam lost, he’d seen the ending twenty-thousand times. The One-Wing Angel was a punctuation point at the end of a statement. Yet, each time he watched through the recording he paused on that one pin after the Deadeye. Adam had Kenny stacked, his full weight on his shoulders. The bell should’ve rung. Except Adam only hooked the left leg. He only hooked the left leg on Kenny Omega. He only hooked the left leg on  _ Kenny Fucking Omega.  _ The best pin he got the whole match. Right after Omega ate: a half-dozen elbows, too many chops to count, a starching powerbomb on the ramp, three boots to the face, and got dropped on his head from four feet in the air. The planets aligned, the Scorpio was in Aquarius or whatever, and Adam only hooked one leg. 

_ “It was the– it was the right leg!”  _

Tony’s voice shuttered through the phone in Adam’s lap. The screen paused on the collapsed forms of the combatants in the ring. Adam face down in the fore-ground and Kenny clutching his leg not far behind. At that moment he hadn’t thought about the right leg. Kenny had kicked out by some miracle but it wasn’t sheer luck. Kenny exploited Adam’s error. Of course, unbeknownst to Adam, the comms were carefully picking-apart Adam’s critical mistake. The legs weren’t neutralized. Kenny could swing his right leg and leverage his weight-out. If Adam had hooked both legs the match would be over, he’d be facing Mox. Instead, he made a stupid mistake so obvious even Tony Schiavone, who would break his hand before he could throw a good punch, pointed it out. 

A headache formed behind Adam’s eyes. He tore his gaze from the screen and glanced-out the window. The dark night streaked black, reflecting back his hotel room and his bedraggled body propped-up in bed. A limp hand fluttered out to find his bourbon on the nightstand. He lifted the glass to his lips and found no relief for his parched throat. Adam scowled and returned the glass to where he found it. The bottle was empty too. He couldn’t tell if he was buzzed, drunk, or hungover. Just a dullness, settling in with the ache and exhaustion. Adam used the tip of his finger to edge the glass away from him. A final statement that he was done for the night. He slid down from his upright position against the pillows and sprawled out the bed covers. The fan swirled in lazy circles above him. After months of blistering heat, Florida had cooled to a tolerable temperature but this room was cooking him alive. His hair was still damp from the shower. He glanced at the clock, 1:43. No phone calls, no texts, no Twitter updates, he put his phone on airplane mode hours ago. It was just him, the recording of his life’s greatest failure, and an empty bottle of bourbon. 

Adam lifted his phone from his side. He turned onto his cheek to glance at it again. He hit the play button and the recording rolled. The two men recovered, Adam was up first. He set-up for the buckshot but Kenny anticipated it and rolled him into a crucifix. He was so fucking  _ predictable.  _ Adam used a boot between the ropes to stuff Kenny’s charge three times that night. No wonder he had his leg well scouted. That twisting move on his knee obliterated his chance in the match. Can’t stand, can’t fight. Oh, Adam had a couple more signs of life in him but two knees to the face, well. He was up on Kenny’s shoulders now. Kenny caught the head and Humpty Dumpty took a great fall. The leg hook was a formality. Adam wasn’t even sure he was conscious for this part. One, two, three, and Adam paused the video again. He haphazardly tossed the phone and it clattered off the edge of the bed. Adam had a life proof case for a reason. 

There was no point in watching any further. 

For a head-spinning minute, Hangman Adam Page was somebody. He was the tag team champion, alongside Kenny Fucking Omega. He was on top of the world. It was all so good. Training with Kenny, fighting with Kenny, sometimes, fighting with Kenny. Getting distracted by another tag-team– No, Kenny literally dropping Adam like a sack of potatoes was inevitable. He had held Kenny back, made stupid fucking mistakes, hit his partner on accident, got drunk, and wandered around arenas like a moron. Bickering with the Bucks and ruining his friendships. Adam was an arsonist, he only burned down bridges and never built them. Now he was alone on his Island, just like he always wanted. And he had a lost tournament to prove how ‘accomplished’ Adam Page truly is. Matt and Nick were right about him. For all his bluster, all his big talk, believing in himself when no one else would. Empty words, Adam could talk the talk, but he couldn’t walk the walk. Because he ran-up against someone like Kenny Fucking Omega. 

And he forgot to hook the right leg. 

He didn’t need the video for the next part. Kenny’s head and hand lifted high. Kenny haloed like an angel of death by the Daily Place lights. Kenny knelt above him like a prayer at the altar. Cheeks blushed in rose, breath spilling from his chapped, pink lips. Curls like spun gold, framing his sculptured features. Like something out of a renaissance art painting. Out of a great tragedy, Lucifer, Achilles, Gabriel. His lips against his forehead in a kiss as delicate as a flower petal. Paul Turner helping Adam limp out of the arena.  _ Fuck Hangman,  _ and then taking the Uber back to his hotel alone, in utter silence with the guy working the graveyard shift. Alcohol, shower, alcohol, video self-pity marathon, alcohol. He wished his dog was here. Wait, what was that last bit?

Adam lunged across the bed. Kicked into action as if chased by a hell-hound. Belly against the comforter his hands searched the floor until he found his phone lodged by the headboard. Half-his chest off the bed he hit the play button. Adam slammed against the ring mat. The fall-out, the replay, the play-by-play, the comms chattering,  _ (”Kenny came out the better man”),  _ blah, blah, blah. Paul Turner helped Kenny up. Then he was back down, knelt over Adam, and with great reverence, Kenny stooped to kiss Adam’s forehead. Then he rolled out of the ring. Adam paused the video. Then he played it back. Then he paused the video and then he played it back. He paused the video, he played it back. Inch-by-inch Adam slid off the mattress until he was slumped against the floor, legs hooked on the bed above him. He watched that little end sequence on loop until it was emblazoned against his memory. It was so quick the comms didn’t even mention it. 

A kiss. Kenny  _ kissed  _ him. Kenny  _ Fucking  _ Omega kissed  _ him _ . Adam laid his hand over his sternum. His heart shuttered in his chest, pounding, tight, and agonizing. Pure pain, looking at the blurred pixels on his phone screen. It wasn’t near enough, the taste of it was like a morsel of food for a starving man. Kenny lingered over Adam in nothing but obscure pixels. What was his expression like? What did he do with his hands? And most important, something the phone could never tell him, why? 

Adam and Kenny were out. Now that his obligations to the tag title were done, Kenny returned to the single arena. Tired of dragging dead weight, tired of the noose around his throat. Kenny walked out on the tag team Adam prayed to stay in. Adam screwed over the Bucks. He spitefully entered a tournament to prove he didn’t need Kenny anyway. Adam didn’t even  _ shake his hand  _ at the start of the match. Not just because he was angry –Adam was pissed in that unshakable, focused way– but because he was afraid. Taking Kenny’s hand, never letting go, too tempting a possibility. The longer he stared at the screen the longer this shameless act of devotion eluded him. 

For the first time in hours, Adam turned his phone off airplane mode. He shuffled through the deluge of notifications by dismissing all of them without reading any. He pulled-up Kenny’s contact, drafted a text message.

_ “Hey, man, good fight today– well, yesterday, I guess. I just wanted to ask, out of curiosity, did you kiss me at the end? I mean, it’s no big deal. I was just wondering is all like i thought it was a little odd is all. Are you ok? You know you can always count on me, no matter what. I’m sorry i’ve been such an ass. I need to start drinking less, much less. It’s just that everything, the tournament, the belts, it’s been getting to me, I only wanted to prove to you guys I could keep up. I want you to know, I feel the same.” _

Adam paused, his thumb hovering over the send button. The last line stained in black font against his vision. He then selected the entire text, cut it, and pasted it into a note’s app. Adam sighed and turned off his phone. His arm slung over his eyes. Five minutes later he was passed out cold, still on the floor, snoring, and with the lights on. 


End file.
